Meet the author

Talya Baldwin.

Illustrator · United Kingdom

A British illustrator with a densely detailed, painterly eye for the overlooked and the wondrous, behind Katherine Rundell's The Golden Mole and the nostalgic adventure Beryl and Carol.

Talya Baldwin is a British illustrator based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, who studied at Wimbledon School of Art, in Edinburgh and at Saint Martin's. She works in inks, paints, biros, pencils and crayons to build fantastical, densely detailed images, often drawn to the unloved, forgotten or overlooked, from sideshow performers to feral pigeons and abandoned places. For children she has illustrated Katherine Rundell's The Golden Mole and the independently published adventure The Noble Adventures of Beryl and Carol, a warm, old-fashioned 1990s treasure hunt about two brave best friends who turn their fears into heroism. Her painterly, atmospheric style suits stories with real friendship, real jeopardy and a nostalgic heart, giving young fiction a hand-made, slightly wondrous texture rarely found in mainstream illustration.